Ira, Police Clash As Anti-british Rallies Begin

August 9, 1985|United Press International

LONDONDERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND — Firebomb-throwing Irish Republican Army sympathizers clashed with police in six towns today as the IRA buried one of its fighters in the first of three days of anti-British rallies across the province.

In Belfast, police fired 20 plastic bullets to break up a mob trying to pull a man from a car, police said. One rioter was hospitalized with a head wound but a police spokesman said he did not know how he was injured.

Police across the country were barred from taking vacation or days off across Ulster this weekend because of the three days of planned demonstrations marking the 14th anniversary of laws allowing IRA members to be jailed without trial.

In Londonderry, 75 miles northwest of Belfast, American supporters of the outlawed IRA watched skirmishes between police and youths and later joined 1,500 mourners at the funeral of Charles English, 21, an IRA fighter killed in a bungled grenade attack on police.

New Yorker Martin Galvin -- banned from Northern Ireland by the British government -- slipped through a police and army cordon to appear at the funeral.

Galvin, publicity director of the pro-IRA fund-raising group, NORAID, materialized as four hooded and masked IRA men joined the funeral procession between St. Columba`s Church and the cemetery.

Galvin helped carry the coffin for a short distance and then joined the procession.

Last year Galvin violated the ban and appeared at a rally but when police moved in, a melee broke out and a 22-year-old man was killed by a rubber bullet and 20 others injured. Galvin escaped arrest.

Two British army helicopters circled overhead and armored police Land Rovers followed the cortege. The casket was draped in the Irish republic`s tricolor and bore the dead man`s black IRA beret and gloves.

One of the American IRA backers, Myrna Merchant of Rouses Point, N.Y., protested the police presence at the funeral.

``This funeral is overwhelming. What`s really horrible is the insensitivity of the RUC (police). They have no respect for this boy and his family. It`s quite an eye-opener,`` she said.

British troops set up roadblocks around the Bogside area of the city where the funeral took place. About a dozen police vans were waiting at St. Columba`s church when the procession arrived.

Pall-bearers were prominent members of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, and included Martin McGuinness, who denies British allegations he is the IRA`s military commander.

Police came under attack early today in Londonderry, Strabane, Newry, Downpatrick, Portadown and Belfast, skirmishing with youths who hurled firebombs, stones and concrete slabs, authorities said.

In advance of today`s rallies, four hooded gunmen of the IRA -- which is waging a bloody campaign to oust the British -- burst into a clubhouse at a golf course early Thursday in the village of Ballycastle, 40 miles north of Belfast, ushered staff outside the building and blew up the premises.